Felting and Iran 7

I am a tree lover, that´s for sure and have always been. Maybe because of my name because Eken means from the oak or maybe because my mother planted a tree for me when I was fired from the hospital when I was two years old. Our family call the tree at my mother´s place, Marijke´s tree and she has strictly forbidden anyone to chop it off.

Anyway, on our way from Shiraz to Yazd, it was slightly snowing and cold. While travelling, I started to felt, something I do more often when I am on my way to something and in need for some quite moments. Little things, flowers or little balls with some water that is left, or even spit when no water at hand. Our driver, who recently had become his first child, was a calm and friendly young man.

He wanted to show us the oldest tree of Iran, did we like that? Sure we did! This tree is about 4.000 years old, as they say, and is called the Sarv-e-Abarkooh, (Cypress of Abarkooh) or the Zoroastrian Sarv.

It is a giant, a monument, a tree to live in and definitely a tree to hug, an ancient storyteller of a tree……….

People put pieces of textile in the tree, or ribbons, or little prayers, they have picnics under the tree and sleep in it´s shadow………In Overasselt, in the Netherlands, not far from were I used to live there is a´ fevertree´ I will tell you later about………so I left my felted mark in this tree as an ode to the wonderful people I already met in Iran.